Once Again: The Democrats' Very Worst Senate Candidate-- Erin Patrick Murphy, AKA- Privileged Patrick

There are 5 Senate races that are really close and that will determine which party controls that body for the next two years-- but neither swingy Ohio nor Florida, where Chuck Schumer picked his own candidates, Ted Strickland and Patrick Murphy, and rammed them through the primary process-- are among them. Both Schumer's candidates were seen as duds before Schumer insisted on them and both have proven the point after they were given the Democratic nominations on silver platters.

Way back in May, months before Obama put his finger (and toes and whole torso) on the scale for Murphy, we warned that Murphy would eventually face prison for a series of illegal straw donor conspiracies like the one that landed Ami Bera's father behind bars, in particular for one involving one of Saudi Arabia's richest and most powerful families, the notorious al-Rashids. Now the FBI is actively investigating the links between the al-Rashid family and Murphy, the shadiest member of the House Intelligence Committee. Murphy has a long and sordid history with straw donors and the al-Rashids involvement is just the latest to come to light. The story in The Hill barely brushes the surface-- literally... they reveal but a small fraction of the facts on the ground.

Tuesday, Alan Grayson, the progressive icon who was smeared by Schumer and Reid and then crushed and left for dead by Obama, spoke up about what really happened in the Florida Democratic primary that is virtually handing Marco Rubio back his Senate seat. As we;ve been saying here at DWT regularly and as Florida reporter Marc Caputo parroted on WPLG 2 weeks ago, "Washington, DC wanted to defeat Alan Grayson as the Democratic candidate for the Senate, and now they’re happy to allow Marco Rubio to resuscitate his political career." Grayson:

As many readers of this missive may be aware, I ran against Patrick Murphy in the August 30 Florida Senate Democratic Primary. A few months earlier, a Murphy political operative had an interesting conversation with someone working on my campaign. The operative said that Murphy’s father, Tom Murphy, had promised to give the Democrats’ Super PAC (Senate Majority PAC) and Patrick Murphy’s captive Super PAC (Floridians for a Strong Middle Class) $5 million if Patrick won the nomination, and that Tom Murphy would round up another $5 million from his friends and colleagues. So the Democratic Party could expect to see $10 million if it delivered the nomination to Murphy.

Very interesting, I thought. This explained to me why Sen. Harry Reid, head of the Senate Democrats, had been interfering in my primary and belligerently attacking me personally for months, and why the DSCC had been trying to plant “hit pieces” against me with its inside-the-Beltway pet reporters in the media.

I can’t say that I was surprised by this. Patrick Murphy’s father Tom, a Republican, already had passed around more than $1.5 million to Democratic candidates and organizations to grease the skids for Patrick, including the purchase of several key endorsements by elected officials. I asked one of them why he had endorsed Patrick. He told me, “Alan, if you gave me $20,000, then I’d be your best friend for life, too.”

In fact, without Daddy’s promise of $10 million, it would be very hard to explain why Senate Democrats would give a fig for Patrick Murphy. Murphy won his seat by less than one-half of one percent of the vote, while the Democrat running four years earlier in the same district had won by ten points. Murphy is a second-term Congressman who has accomplished so little that he was named the least effective Member of the House. Completely bereft of any legislative accomplishments, he is forced to point to a GOP bill for which he takes credit, because the GOP author said something nice about him on the Floor of the House. Murphy’s main goal in Congress seems to have been to try to set some kind of record for party disloyalty, by voting for more than 60 times for bills that were so odious than President Obama threatened in advance to veto them, voting seven times to force the President to license the Keystone Pipeline, voting to “condemn” the President over the Bowe Bergdahl swap, and voting (with only six other House Democrats) in favor of the GOP’s Benghazi witch-hunt committee. Murphy also voted (alone among 188 House Democrats) to vote to kill high-speed rail in Florida, even though it passes through his district, after his father’s construction company withdrew its effort to win the bid on the project. And Salon magazine points out that Patrick Murphy was a lifelong Republican who switched parties the month he declared for Congress and then, after election as a Democrat, asked Speaker John Boehner if he could switch back. (Boehner wasn’t interested.)

And me? I’m the only House Democrat to represent downtown Orlando in the past 42 years. I won my 2008 race by just four points. I lost in both 2006 and in 2010. House Democrats have a system for Member of Congress in shaky districts like mine, called “the pass.” If such a Member wants to vote against the party for political reasons, you are supposed to tell the Democratic Leadership ahead of time, “I need to take a pass.”

I have never taken a pass. Ne-ver. And I’ve passed 100 bills and amendments through the House in the last four years, all solid progressive legislation. And I won my last two House campaigns by double digits.

So, if the question is why the Democratic Party would endorse Patrick Murphy in a contested Senate primary, the answer has got to be Daddy’s $10 million. What else could it be?

Now, some might say, “OK, I’m not too thrilled with the idea that $10 million buys a Senate nomination, complete with full support from the party bosses, but we have to fight back against the Koch Brothers’ billions somehow, right?” I’m sorry, but that’s not what that $10 million is really all about. Media commissions are 15%. When the party’s Super PAC spends $10 million, then someone who is on very friendly terms with the party bosses makes a quick and easy (and legal!) $1.5 million.

That’s what that $10 million is really all about. Payola.

Still, that conversation that was conveyed to me is just a story, right? Just one politico talking to another.

No. Because when the Democrat’s Senate Majority PAC actually reserved TV time for that ten-week period between the primary and the general election, the amount of Florida TV time that it reserved was... $10 million. Precisely the amount that Tom Murphy promised to deliver.

It’s worth considering how utterly implausible it is that the Senate Majority PAC and the DSCC each would reserve $10 million for the last ten weeks of the Florida Senate race, without Tom Murphy’s promised cash. Last time I looked, the Senate Majority PAC had a grand total of $6 million in the bank. So it reserved almost twice the amount of TV time-- in just one race-- as it had cash on hand.

What is wrong with this picture?

And the DSCC? It had $31 million in the bank-- for 34 different Senate races, ten of which have been characterized as competitive. And in the polls for the Democrat in those ten races, Patrick Murphy is... tenth. Why would the DSCC plan to spend one-third of all of its cash on hand on its weakest competitive candidate?

In mid-July, I was up by eight points in my primary. On July 15, the Senate Majority PAC announced a $1 million buy for a TV spot endorsing Patrick Murphy-- almost unprecedented Democratic Party interference in a Senate Primary. By August 1, the TV spot had had its intended effect, with Murphy support zooming upward. The average Tampa voter saw that spot almost thirty times, in barely two weeks.

What happened next? Did Tom Murphy deliver on his $10 million to Senate Majority PAC? Did the DSCC then match Tom’s $10 million, buying young Patrick a Senate seat?

No and no. Tom Murphy kicked in a rather pitiful $250,000 to the Murphy Super PAC “Floridians for a Strong Middle Class” on Sept. 27, which has been dutifully trundling its cash over to the Senate Majority PAC. And after that earlier $1 million purchase of the party endorsement ad on Aug. 13, Tom Murphy has given nothing to the Senate Majority PAC directly. Zilch.

So the Senate Majority PAC pulled the last of its $10 million Florida Senate TV reservations three weeks ago, and the DSCC followed suit a week later.

FWIW, at that time, Patrick Murphy had trailed Marco Rubio in 28 out of the last 28 Florida Senate polls posted at Real Clear Politics. Apparently, Florida voters are not as stupid as the Murphy clan thinks they are.

Did Tom Murphy ever intend to come up with $10 million for Patrick’s campaign? I don’t know, but I doubt it. Did the Democratic Party ever intend to match Tom Murphy’s $10 million? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

l All I know is that just getting a whiff of $10 million of Tom Murphy’s money, just a glance at that mirage, was enough to turn my party against me-- in favor of someone contemptuous of my party and its principles.

I once told a national TV audience, “you have only three friends in life: God, your mama, and the Democratic Party.”

Cross that last one off the list.

The topic of a thoroughly corrupted right-wing, out-of-control FBI interfering in elections by announcing investigations is a separate topic that will have to be dealt with. But last night Hillary had some great news out of Florida. Early voting is way up and 28% of Republicans who have already voted, have voted for her, not for Trump! Overwhelmingly, though, those Republicans didn't then cast their ballots for Murphy but for Marco Rubio, an atrocious Republican every bit as undeserving of a place in the Senate as Murphy. The RealCleatPolitics polling average gives Rubio a healthy 5.6 point lead. The most recent poll, from the NY Times by Siena, shows Rubio beating Murphy 51-42%. Thank Chuck Schumer and, if you get a chance, tell him to stop interfering with Democratic primaries.

Yes, Rubio Is A Dangerous Little Worm, But Supporting Patrick Murphy Is Just As Damaging To The Country-- There Is No Lesser Evil In This Race

Obama was in Miami Thursday, lying to low-info Democratic voters in order to paint Patrick Murphy-- a Republican masquerading as a quasi-Democrat-- as some kind of a progressive. Murphy doesn't have a progressive bone in his body and when he got to Congress, he immediately joined the New Dems and ran up one of the worst voting records of any Democrat in the House, voting with the GOP countless times, even once to remove Obama from the Keystone XL Pipeline decision-making, once to condemn Obama for the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap and once to set up the witch hunt against Hillary Clinton via the so-called Benghazi Committee. But Murphy's slimy financial backers are promising big bucks to Obama's Presidential Library Committee if he can get the hapless and undeserving Murphy into the Senate. Pretty scummy, huh? That's establishment politics.

As you may recall, that last May we started looking into the family of Saudi billionaire Nasser Al-Rashid, one of the most powerful advisors to the Saudi royal family. Nasser gave between a million and 5 million dollars to the Bill Clinton Presidential Library Fund. His 4 sons have been very strategically funding the career of Patrick Murphy and the careers of sleazy congressmembers like Wasserman Schultz, Steve Israel, Ami Bera, Joe Garcia, Alcee Hastings and other members with notoriously corrupt reputations, willing to sign on to Team Murphy.

Yesterday Brent Scher, writing for right-wing mouthpiece, the Washington Free Beacon, brought up Murphy's Saudi connections. "Florida Democrat Patrick Murphy’s political coordination," he wrote, "with a wealthy Saudi Arabian who has been accused of orchestrating an illegal straw donor scheme to support Murphy began prior to Murphy’s official entrance into politics." Abraham Al-Rashid went to a private prep school in New Jersey, the Lawrenceville School, and the Saudi family worked hard for years to get the simpleminded and drunken Murphy into Congress and onto the House Intelligence Committee. And the Saudis started before Murphy even ran for office.

Campaign finance records indicate that Murphy and al-Rashid made political donations in tandem as part of an effort to gain favor with prominent Florida Democrats whose support Murphy needed to launch his political career.

The large donations to Florida Democrats occurred early in 2011 after Murphy hired a political consultant to map out a congressional run.

On January 20 and January 21, 2011, Murphy and his father each contributed $2,400 to Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.). Budman, al-Rashid’s wife, made an identical $2,400 contribution to Nelson on January 20, with “homemaker” listed as her occupation on the report.

A week later, on January 27, Murphy and his father each contributed $4,800 to Florida Rep. Ted Deutch (D.). Al-Rashid and Budman made identical $4,800 contributions to Deutch that day.

The following week, on February 2, Murphy contributed $4,800 to Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.). Al-Rashid and Budman also donated the maximum to Wasserman Schultz that day.

Wasserman Schultz benefited from additional $2,400 contributions from al-Rashid’s two brothers, Mohammed al-Rashid [who uses the fake name "Moose" when he makes many contributions] of Los Angeles, California, and Salman al-Rashid of Austin, Texas.

In a single week in February, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee received $30,000 from Ibraham al-Rashid, $3,500 from Mohammed al-Rashid [Moose], $2,500 from Salmon al-Rashid, and $2,000 from Murphy.

The Senate Leadership Fund, which filed the straw donor complaint that is now being reviewed by the Federal Election Committee, said in a statement to the Free Beacon that the coordinated donations are further evidence that Murphy was aware of al-Rashid’s straw donor operation.

“Patrick Murphy may try and separate himself from the apparent straw donor scheme that helped launch his political career, but this new revelation seems to show he was 100 percent involved with that political money laundering scam,” said Ian Prior, a spokesman for the group.

The complaint laid out evidence that a network of donors was contributing the maximum allowed amount of money to both Murphy and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (D.) on behalf of al-Rashid.

Al-Rashid is the son of a Saudi Arabian billionaire who has donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.

The complaint identified a number of donors in Pennsylvania who were related to al-Rashid through Budman who made large contributions to Murphy and Crist on nearly identical dates as al-Rashid himself.

The complaint also pointed out large contributions to Murphy and Crist from a woman who was listed as a “property manager” but has since been identified as Ibrahim al-Rashid’s “cleaning lady.”

Murphy’s spending to law firms that specialize in congressional investigations spiked following the FEC complaint, though the exact reason for the increase remains unclear.

Budman left al-Rashid in February 2014 after she told police that he “grabbed her by the wrist, struck her about the head and face with a closed fist then threw her to the ground” during an altercation at their Miami home.

The Murphy campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the donations. Attempts to reach Budman and members of her family were unsuccessful.

Murphy has attempted to distance himself from al-Rashid since his assault on Budman.

“There is no excuse for domestic violence,” Murphy said earlier this year. “Both Morgan and Ibrahim have been long time friends and supporters of mine. Morgan even worked on my first campaign.”

“This incident is personal for me,” Murphy said. “I was heartbroken when I found out, and I condemn Ibrahim’s inexcusable actions. Over the past year I have prayed for Morgan and her family to find healing.”

Republicans have called on Murphy to donate $100,000 to charities that address domestic violence to offset the money that al-Rashid gave to liberal super PACs that support him.

Nancy Smith did a very similar piece about the Murphy-Saudi connection for Florida's Sunshine State News.

We've reported on al-Rashid's connection to Patrick Murphy before. But this is the first we've seen of the donation scheme that started as long ago as five-plus years to keep Murphy climbing the ladder to candidacy.

   ...Here's how the contributions flowed to prominent Dems:

• Jan. 20 and Jan. 21, 2011: Murphy and his father each contributed $2,400 to Democratic Sen. Nelson. Budman, al-Rashid’s wife, made an identical $2,400 contribution to Nelson on Jan. 20, with “homemaker” listed as her occupation on the report.
• Jan. 27, one week later: Murphy and his father each contributed $4,800 to Florida Rep. Ted Deutch, D. Al-Rashid and Budman made identical $4,800 contributions to Deutch that same day.
• Feb.2, the very next week: Murphy contributed $4,800 to Wasserman Schultz, D. Al-Rashid and Budman also donated the maximum to Wasserman Schultz that day.
• Wasserman Schultz benefited from additional $2,400 contributions from al-Rashid’s two brothers, Mohammed al-Rashid of Los Angeles, Calif. and Salman al-Rashid of Austin, Texas.

In a single week in February, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said "thank you very much" to $30,000 from Ibraham al-Rashid, $3,500 from Mohammed al-Rashid, $2,500 from Salmon al-Rashid, and $2,000 from Murphy.

Both pieces left out that the al-Rashids illegally provided thousands of dollars to their servants and in-laws to also contribute to Murphy's campaigns and SuperPACs, something that could land them and Murphy in prison. I've taken out formal complaints against Murphy and his financiers with the Department of Justice and we'll let you know as they wend their way slowly through the judicial system.

Moose al-Rashid has never been photographed 

Saudi Influence On The U.S. Government-- Beyond Moose Al-Rashid

I've been sitting around with my attorney trying to figure out how to get the al-Rashid family into court for corrupting American politics. It's worth repeating that a serious Al-Rashid scandal is starting to burn Patrick Murphy and other politicians who have gotten into bed with him. The background that everyone knows is that a close friend of Murphy's, Ibrahim Al-Rashid, an investment broker and the son of one of the most powerful Saudi billionaires, gives immense amounts of money to Patrick, married Patrick's finance director, beat her up and was convicted of battery and drew a sentence of one year's probation. People are less aware that several sons of that Saudi billionaire, Nasser Al-Rashid, one of the Saudi royal family's closet advisors, have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign coffers of some of the most easily corruptible conservative Democrats, particularly Patrick Murphy, of course, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and on a subcommittee which the Saudi government is very interested, the Department of Defense Intelligence and Overhead Architecture Subcommittee. Some of the money Ibrahim Al-Rashid has given Murphy is legal and some extremely illegal-- and he has also been giving money to congressional crooks Murphy has wanted to funnel money to for his own purposes.

Ibrahim married Murphy's campaign finance director, Morgan Budman, although earlier he had given many thousands of dollars for her and to her relatives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania to contribute to Murphy's campaign, a serious federal offense. He also gave large sums to other people to contribute to Murphy, like his maid,all of which is highly illegal. The legal contributions that Ibrahim gave Murphy amounted to approximately $16,000 directly, $100,000 to Murphy's American Sunrise PAC (run by Murphy's crooked Republican father), $180,000 to the Pelosi-run House Majority PAC, $35,800 to the DCCC, $6,000 to the DSCC and $100,000 to Harry Reid's Senate Majority PAC, specifically earmarked for Murphy's race. (He's also contributed several thousand dollars directly to Reid himself.) Over the weekend-- as a brighter light has been shone on Al-Rashid-- Reid decided to return the $100,000 Senate Majority PAC contribution to Al-Rashid. Murphy claims to have donated his $16,000 to a charity for battered women after Rashid was convicted of beating his wife/Murphy's finance director to within an inch of her life. But Murphy has refused to disgorge the $100,000 made directly to his SuperPAC. Wassermann Schultz, Eric Swalwell, Joe Garcia, Steve Israel, the DCCC, Pelosi and Charlie Crist have also so far refused to get rid of the tainted money.

Murphy cronies, most of whom play fast and loose on the ethics front, who have accepted Ibrahim Al-Rashid's bribes include:

• Debbie Wasserman Schultz- $4,800
• Eric Swalwell- $10,400
• Lois Frankel- $7,500 (of which she returned $2,500)
• Joe Garcia- $5,400
• Alcee Hastings- $5,000
• Charlie Crist- $4,800
• Ami Bera- $2,600
• Steve Israel- $2,500
• Harry Reid- $2,400
• Frederica Wilson- $5,200
• Ted Deutch- $10,200

Nasser Al-Rashid himself-- the father (also a notorious woman abuser, particularly of Ibrahim's mother who wrote a book about it)-- has given over $1,000,000 to the Clinton Library. Nasser's other sons are in on it as well. This cycle, Mohammed Al-Rashid, who uses the pseudonym "Moose" Al-Rashid, gave two fat checks to Murphy, both on June 2, 2015, one for $2,700 and one for $2,300. Another brother, Salman, also contributes to the same clown-show of candidates in Murphy's orbit:

• Patrick Murphy- $10,200
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz- $2,400
• Ami Bera- $1,000
• Steve Israel- $2,500
• Ted Deutch- $2,400
• Alcee Hastings- $2,400
• Charlie Crist- $4,800

And then there's Ramzi, who gave Patrick Murphy another $5,000 in Al-Rashid money. Both before and after she married Ibrahim, Morgan Budman was contributing large amounts of money to the same corrupt Democrats the Al-Rashid family had decided to buy into, especially Murphy, but many of Murphy's cronies as well, especially Wasserman Schultz, Charlie Crist, Ted Deutch and Alcee Hastings. So... now that Harry Reid has given back the $100,000 in tainted money, what about the DSCC, the DCCC, Pelosi's House Majority PAC and all the dirty little corruptionists like Wasserman Schultz and Bera? And what about that $100,000 that went to Murphy's SuperPAC? And will there be a serious investigation into what information the Saudi government wants from House Intelligence Committee member Patrick Murphy that would make them spend so many hundreds of thousands of dollars on his career?

Back in late March, Max Fisher, writing for Vox asked some salient questions about how Saudi Arabia captured our government and why the American foreign policy establishment has aligned itself with an ultra-conservative dictatorship that often acts counter to US values and interests. He never got around to Murphy.

When Obama criticized Saudi Arabia's treatment of women and its practice of promoting fundamentalism abroad and suggested the Saudis would have to learn to "share" the Middle East with its adversary, Iran, the DC foreign policy establishment-- much of which is as paid off by the Saudis as Patrick Murphy is-- went ape-shit.

Whereas Obama's material support for a disastrous Saudi-led war had drawn little protest in Washington, his words of muted criticism for Saudi Arabia provoked days of sustained outrage. His comments were denounced as "play[ing] the blame game"; "betraying a grievous misunderstanding of what it means to be the world’s No. 1"; "the mark of a careless and clumsy amateur"; "turn[ing] allies overboard"; "overweening arrogance"; blaming others for his own failures; comparable to Donald Trump; and so on.

The moment was just the latest manifestation of something strange about Washington's foreign policy community: It is deeply, viscerally committed to defending and advocating for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a country whose authoritarian government, ultra-conservative values, and extremist-promoting foreign policy would seem like an unusual passion project for American foreign policy professionals.

That advocacy has consequences. Though Saudi Arabia often acts counter to US interests, for example by working against US policy in the Middle East and by funding extremists, the US still provides direct support for Saudi actions that undermine the regional stability America desires, for example by backing the Yemen war against Americans' better judgment.

The Obama administration decided on its own to support that war, and for reasons beyond how it would play on Massachusetts Avenue. But that decision, like so many before it, was informed by a culture in Washington that encourages nearly any action in support of Saudi Arabia and punishes any aberration.

Why is this? What explains the Washington consensus in favor of Wahhabist autocrats who often act counter to American values and interests?

Some in the Obama administration, based on what they told The Atlantic (and on my own conversations with administration officials), seem to believe the answer is money: that Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Arab states have purchased loyalty and influence.

But the truth may be subtler than that-- and say as much about innate Washington biases as about any foreign-bought influence.

When I asked members of the DC-based foreign policy community what was driving this, they described an establishment whose preexisting worldview-- a natural preference for the status quo and the familiar, a mythology of welcomed American hegemony-- naturally aligns with Saudi Arabia's. But they also pointed to ways in which Gulf money, in recent years, has come to distort Washington's conversations about the Middle East. (All asked to speak anonymously, given the subject's sensitivity.)

Everyone I spoke to emphasized that the pro-Saudi views expressed in Washington are earnestly held; no one is ordered by foreign funders to express a certain viewpoint. Rather, they described a subtler role, in which money amplifies preexisting norms and habits that favor a pro-Saudi consensus, deepening a bias that would exist in the absence of that money but would not be quite as strongly held or widely expressed.

All agreed that this bias, whatever its causes, is a serious problem for Washington, hindering the United States' ability to understand, and navigate, a rapidly changing Middle East. And in a town where everything is debated, it's one of the few things that most people would rather not discuss.

...The New York Times, that year, published an investigation on foreign government funding at think tanks, which the paper found had risen dramatically. It identified millions in donations going to many of Washington's most influential institutions, which were "producing policy papers, hosting forums and organizing private briefings for senior United States government officials that typically align with the foreign governments’ agendas."

The Times investigation detailed several incidents in which donations from foreign governments had seemed to directly influence think tank behavior:

• Saleem Ali, a former visiting scholar at the Brookings center in Qatar, said he had been told not to write critically of the Qatari government.

• Emails between the Center for Global Development and the Norwegian government seemed to indicate a quid pro quo in which Norway would "donate" to CGD, which in turn would help persuade US government officials to increase funding for global forest protection efforts by $250 million.

• The Japanese government gave to CSIS, which now sponsors Japanese officials as "visiting scholars" who are granted access to US government officials by way of CSIS events and preexisting relationships.

• The United Arab Emirates, also a CSIS donor, got its ambassador to the US invited to participate on a public panel alongside then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey, whom the ambassador grilled about US commitments to the UAE.

...[E]veryone I spoke to was careful to point out that this pro-Saudi status quo bias would exist even in the absence of foreign funding. But they saw Gulf money as amplifying that trend, perhaps significantly, along with the voices that just happened to echo the pro-Saudi conventional wisdom.

"It would not completely disappear in the absence of that money," one of the Washington experts told me. "People earnestly believe that the American interest is best served by maintaining the status quo, supporting Israel, containing Iran."

This status quo order was probably never going to last, and began disintegrating in 2011 with the Arab Spring, which saw Islamist and populist politics rising as the reliable old dictatorships fell. The familiar old order began to disappear. And that order had served few better than it did for the United States and Saudi Arabia.

For many Middle East hands in Washington, who have presided over this status quo throughout their professional lives, this change is unsettling, and has sparked an understandable desire to hold on to whatever remains of the old order.

"Democracy's become a bad word again," one expert told me. "It's all about stability. And the Saudis are equated with stability."

Because the US-Saudi alliance was always a central pillar to American strategy, preserving the alliance is sometimes treated as synonymous with preserving the pro-American order.

..."There's a broad consensus in wanting things to be the way they were before," one DC-based Middle East expert said.

"That means the US alliance with Israel and with Gulf states to contain Iran, fight terrorism, and keep the oil flowing," the expert went on. "That's been US foreign policy for 50 years. Obama is trying to do different things. So what you're seeing is a pro-Saudi position that's also the foreign policy establishment position."

Because the old order was so aligned with Saudi interests, Washington's status quo bias is expressed as a pro-Saudi bias. When the foreign policy community calls for maintaining the old alliance structure, isolating Iran, and staving off Islamist movements, these are all core Saudi interests.

But, more than that, the Saudis and other Gulf states tend to describe the world, and America's place in it, in terms that many members of Washington's foreign policy community badly want to hear.

I am often asked why Washington's foreign policy consensus can seem unusually inclined to interventionism and other assertive foreign policy positions, and why, compared with other policy fields, it is relatively bereft of more libertarian-minded scholars.

To me, the answer has always seemed obvious: You are more drawn to the study and practice of American foreign policy if you believe that American involvement abroad is generally a force for good.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states share this belief. They explicitly desire American hegemony over their region because it serves their interests, helping to maintain their rule at home and their outsize influence abroad. When you speak to officials from those countries, they sound practically like Ronald Reagan, describing American power projection in the world as necessary and indeed welcome.

"I think I believe in American power more than Obama does," Jordan's King Abdullah II is quoted as saying in the Atlantic's story.

This is a common view among American allies, who have come to rely on American security reassurances, who know that the United States has an enormous budget and military that can help solve their problems for them, and who, for years, have been listening to Americans tell them that the United States will and should be in charge.

For American foreign policy professionals who share this belief, their attitudes are rooted in idealism and optimism about the role of US power, along with a self-affirming belief in the intrinsic good of American hegemony. For Gulf states, it is a matter of cold, strategic self-interest-- American power is not just useful for them, but perhaps necessary for propping up their own regimes, which are often anachronistic autocracies and enjoy far more regional power than they would otherwise.

The point is that both groups share a worldview that privileges, to an unusual degree, the assertion of American power and that fears the consequences of American inaction.

This worldview, for Americans, is rooted as much in foreign policy doctrine as it is in something of mythology. In our mythos, hegemony over the Middle East is fondly but falsely remembered as more stable, more welcome, and more durable than it actually was or is. American power projection in the Middle East, whose track record has been mixed at best, is considered not just a useful tool but an intrinsic good in itself.

In that mythology, the American unipolar moment after the Cold War was peaceful not because of the absence of great-power conflict or proxy warfare, but for the far more idealistic and appealing reason that the assertion of American power is inherently virtuous and stabilizing. In this view, the root cause of any problem in the world must therefore be an absence of American power projection, and the solution, therefore, is always more American power.

For decades, American foreign policy makers have been trying to convince US allies, including those in the Gulf, to buy into this mythology. Many did, and grew to rely on the consequences of that worldview. Now those in the Gulf are spending heavily to persuade Washington of its own mythology. Many people in Washington, ever willing to hear their own wisdom repeated back to them, including and perhaps especially when that wisdom appears falsified by reality, are listening.

So while Sayyid Trumpanzee and Hillary argue about who the Saudis have bribed more effectively, Mark Karlin dug into the increasingly dysfunctional U.S.-Saudi relationship yesterday at Truthout with Medea Benjamin author of Kingdom of the Unjust, who defines the relationship in terms of how "both economies are key players in a global capitalist economy propelled by planet-destroying fossil fuels and weapons. Whether the US version with a multiparty system with elections, or the Saudi version of a theocratic monarchy, both economies are in the hands of elites who benefit at the expense of the people and planet... It is not in the interests of the Saudi or US public to have an economy so reliant on oil and weapons, but these huge sectors have powerful lobbies that distort our policies. And now that the Saudis have used their huge profits from oil sales to invest in the US economy, they can-- and have-- blackmailed the US government. When Congress was voting to give US victims of the 9/11 attacks the right to sue the Saudi government in US courts, the Saudis threatened to withdraw $750 billion from the US treasury and other assets."

Karlin: You report as corroborated, what has been circulating as speculative news for some time, that Saudi Arabia and Israel have been unofficially developing at least a modest intelligence, military and strategic relationship of sorts. What is behind this rather chilling development for the Palestinians in particular?

Benjamin: On the surface, it would seem that Saudi Arabia and Israel would be the worst of enemies, as the two nations have no diplomatic relations and the Saudis have traditionally been strong supporters of the Palestinians. But beneath the surface, these two old adversaries actually have a lot in common, and many feel that the Saudis have turned their backs on the Palestinians by forging closer ties with Israel.

Both nations supported the military coup in Egypt, with the Saudis providing billions of dollars to General el-Sisi's government. The coup has been disastrous for the Palestinians, as General el-Sisi, on Israel's insistence, closed the Egypt/Gaza border, which was the only way most Palestinians were able to transit.

But the major bond between the Saudi and Israeli rulers is their mutual hatred of Iran. Both view Iran as an existential threat and fear Iran's growing influence in the region. They both opposed the Iran nuclear deal and are determined to stop the United States from getting any closer to Iran. This is dangerous for the entire region since any political solutions will have to involve bringing all key players in the region together, including Iran.

Why Isn't Obama Cracking Down On Foreign Money Illegally Flooding Into U.S. Election Campaigns?

Trump wants the savage mob that draws energy from his hate-filled cheap entertainment rallies to believe he's some kind of a "law and order" candidate. Trump-- the guy who has spent an entire lifetime bulldozing any law and any order that's ever gotten in the way of whatever he wanted? That Trump. And his latest criminal behavior is infuriating me and should infuriate every American regardless of partisan preferences.

What I'm talking about are politicians who believe they're above the law and can get away with soliciting campaign cash from foreigners. The two worst I've ever seen are Patrick Murphy and Donald Trump. Murphy, a "former" Republican currently masquerading as a Democrat, has had a substantial part of his political career paid for by one of Saudi Arabia's most powerful families, the billionaire Al Rashid bunch, who just really, really, really wanted their own man on the Intelligence Committee for some reason.

Even Harry Reid tore up Al Rashid's $100,000 check but many other corrupt politicians are happy to take as much Saudi money as they can get their hands on

Mr. Trumpanzee is less targeted. He and his crooked sons are just flat out soliciting campaign cash all over the world. And now he's ignoring FEC warnings to stop. So what happens now? Jonathan Swan at The Hill reported yesterday that Mr. Trumpanzee is still "soliciting foreign donations despite multiple warnings and a criminal complaint filed with the Department of Justice."

On Sunday, an Australian member of parliament, Terri Butler, emailed The Hill the latest fundraising solicitation she’d received from the Trump campaign.

The email, received on Aug. 14 just after midnight Australian time, went to Butler’s government email account. It asked her to make a campaign contribution to Trump so she could “join the highest ranks of our campaign as an Executive Member.”

Butler told The Hill she has received several fundraising solicitations from the Trump campaign at her government email account.

Butler is hardly the first foreign official to receive solicitations from the Trump campaign. Members of the United Kingdom Parliament, Peter Bottomley and Bob Blackman, have told The Hill that they've received numerous fundraising appeals on the Republican nominee's behalf.

...“The Trump campaign’s continuing solicitation of campaign contributions from people who are obviously foreign nationals is clearly illegal,” said Larry Noble, the general counsel for the non-partisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center.

“Given the news reports, the complaint we filed with the [Federal Election Commission] and the letter we sent to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal investigation, his refusal to put a stop to the solicitations is compelling evidence of the campaign’s flagrant disregard for the law.”

...The Campaign Legal Center and another non-partisan campaign finance watchdog, Democracy 21, sent a criminal complaint to the Department of Justice after The Hill and other news outlets revealed that the Trump campaign had not heeded the watchdogs’ first complaint, filed with the FEC on June 29.

The Hill contacted the FEC and the Department of Justice on Monday, but neither body comments publicly on the status of investigations.

“To protect the interests of those involved in a complaint, the law requires that any Commission action on an enforcement matter be kept strictly confidential until the case is resolved,” said FEC spokesman Christian Hilland.

Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, said the Trump campaign’s foreign solicitations are unlike anything he’s seen in the 40 years that he’s monitored campaign finance.

“It’s inexplicable and impossible to understand why the Trump campaign appears to still be illegally soliciting foreign donations after they have been put on notice numerous times that this is illegal,” Wertheimer said on Monday.

“There is no ambiguity about the fact that these solicitations are illegal.”

This has got to stop-- and immediately. The entire FEC should be fired and replaced if they can't get something this straight-forward and clear handled. Why should they be getting taxpayer-funded salaries at all? And how does this tie in with Putin apparently paying the salary of Trump's campaign manager-- or whatever Paul Manafort's title is this week? We'll deal with how Manafort (and Tony Podesta) spread millions of dollars from Russia around the very easily corruptible American political system in a post tomorrow.

Who Knows Patrick Murphy?

Patrick Murphy has been in Congress almost 4 years and he's telling his constituents "no one knows who I am." While it's absolutely true that he appears to be the ultimate, unaccomplished backbencher with no bills, no amendments, no legislative input and no accomplishments of any kind that any of his constituents might be interested in, young Patrick is being... modest. Appearances can be deceptive. Patrick Murphy has collected more money from Wall Street banksters this cycle than anyone else in the entire House other than Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. His $1,472,869 from the Finance Secror so far is almost double what they gave to any other Democrat-- that being another fake Dem, Arizona Ble Dog Kyrsten Sinema, who, like Murphy, exists to carry out Wall Street's orders. So, clearly, someone knows who he is-- and how much he needs to be paid to do what they want done, not in the public eye but behind the heavy closed doors in the House Financial Services Committee, where Murphy is a bridge between the predatory Republicans trying to dismantle Dodd-Frank and his own New Dem pals who Pelosi allowed to dominate the minority side of the Financial Services Committee.

Of the 23 Democrats on the committee-- easily the most corrupt committee in Congress-- 12 are notoriously corrupt members of the New Dems and/or the Blue Dogs, a far, far greater proportion than the number of New Dems in the House. This is the list alongside how much in bribes from the companies they're supposedly keeping from ripping off the public each has taken since being elected:

• Gregory Meeks (NY)- $2,989,888
• David Scott (GA)- $2,704,894
• Ed Perlmutter (CO)- $3,306,006
• Jim Himes (CT)- $5,380,877
• John Carney (DE)- $1,581,328
• Terri Sewell (AL)- $1,480,670
• Bill Foster (IL)- $2,115,283
• Patrick Murphy (FL)- $3,078,417
• John Delaney (MD)- $1,919,952
• Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)- $1,499,390
• Juan Vargas (CA)- $1,226,802
• Denny Heck (WA)- $982,842

But don't get the wrong idea; it isn't just the banksters who have invested heavily in Patrick. So have the Saudis, who are happy to have their own man on the House Intelligence Committee. Nasser al-Rashid is as near to the pinnacle of the Saudi monarchy as one can be without being a royal. He's one of the king's 3 top advisors and he has four sons in America who have helped get Murphy into Congress and helped him build power by contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars buying his allies and endorsements. The 4 songs-- Ibrahim al-Rashid, Salman al-Rashid, Ramzi al-Rashid and Mohammed al-Rashid (who often funnels money to Murphy and his allies under the name "Moose" al-Rashid) have been a the conduit for Al-Rashid wealth into Congress. (Nasser al-Rashid himself has given and promised millions of dollars to certain presidential libraries as a way of exerting influence without doing anything that is technically and legally overt bribery.) So, it isn't that no one knows who Patrick is. The banksters know and the Saudis know.

Ahoy, Matey

When Patrick Murphy powers up daddy's yacht, the SS Miss Cocktails, it costs over $100,000 just for the fuel and the day's staff. That's certainly one way to travel. The al-Rashid's in fact, brag that they have the most luxurious yacht in the entire world, the gold-plated Lady Moura (complete with it's own helicopter). But if you've read my travel blog, you can guess it isn't the way I travel. One of the ways I've bonded with Alan Grayson is through travel. He's been to even more countries than I have, and, like me-- and unlike Privileged Patrick-- he's an on-the-ground traveler. You learn more about the world that way. Which Grayson has-- and Patrick hasn't. I was moved by this e-mail from Grayson today and thought I'd share it:

I went to Kenya for around four months, when I was in my early twenties. (At that time, the world was in its early 80’s.) In Africa, there is an occupation that’s sometimes called “helper.” When you arrive, some young man (it’s always a man) attaches himself to you, and offers to help with errands and chores in exchange for pay. It normally begins when someone helps you with your bags.

So when I arrived in Nairobi, a helper attached himself to me, and helped me out. I understood the gig. But after a few days, I realized that he had never asked me for any money. (Normally, they ask right away, and repeatedly.) I thought that that was odd, so I asked him why he hadn’t asked me.

He told me that when he was a boy, in the countryside, his village had suffered a terrible famine. He ate grass, just to have something in his belly. One day, a plane flew overhead. It dropped a very large crate. In the crate was food-- lots of food-- in bags with American flags on them. That food saved his life, and the lives of everyone he knew.

So when an American came to town, he would help for free. It was his way of saying “thank you”-- as in, “thank you for saving my life.” In fact, it was the only way that he could say that.

I felt very proud to be an American. (And I paid him anyway.)

How about helping Grayson win the August 30 Democratic primary against Privileged Patrick, his Wall Street and Saudi backers and the corrupted and rotten Democratic Party establishment?

Foreigners Buying Crooked U.S. Politicians-- Like Patrick Murphy And His Business Associate Donald Trump

For a Saudi billionaire it isn't hard to buy a crooked sieve a seat in Congress

When I travel I'm still living under the delusion that I have a secretary who will take care of any emergencies that come up, even though I don't. But I'm so used to cutting myself off when I'm away on vacation that the only communication channel I leave open is e-mail. The FEC, it turns out, doesn't do e-mail.

When I got back from nearly a month in Russia, Azerbaijan and Finland a couple days ago, there were dozens of phone messages to pick up. I still haven't gone through them all. But one-- actually two-- that I attended to immediately was from an FEC agent to me in my capacity as treasurer of Blue America. The FEC wanted an explanation of some significant contributions that flowed to our PAC and our candidates from a donor in China. It was easy to handle because the donor is an American citizen living abroad, just as I used to be myself. But once we got that out of the way-- including a promise from me to send an amended quarterly report attesting to his U.S. citizenship-- I started badgering the agent about the hundreds of thousands of dollars the powerful Saudi billionaire (and top advisor to that country's royal family) Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid, has funneled into Patrick Murphy's career through his sons, Ibrahim, Salman, Ramzi, and Mohammed (AKA- "Moose"). Nasser, by the way, contributed between 1 and 10 million dollars to the Clinton Presidential Library and has made it known that the Saudi would give the Obama Presidential Library a similar amount-- as long as Patrick Murphy was endorsed by the president (and vice-president, the clownish Biden, who actually endorsed Privileged Patrick thinking he was endorsing the former congressman from Pennsylvania, a current U.S. Army Under Secretary, who isn't running for anything.) How useful has it been for the Saudis to have a weak-minded sieve like Murphy sitting on the House Intelligence Committee?

Anyway, I didn't get much of a response, barely a grunt. Oh well... I wonder if the FEC is asking Trump's crooked eldest son, Donald, Jr., why he's soliciting money from citizens of foreign countries, which actually isn't just an infringement of FEC regulations but actual law breaking. A Member of Parliament from Glasgow sent this letter to Donald, Jr. in response to the illegal solicitation:

It turns out Trump is trying to get foreigners to give him campaign cash. I haven't read much about the FEC doing anything about that. Have you? Chris Hayes did a story about this on his show last night. And TalkingPointsMemo caught it too, reporting that the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, filed a complaint with the FEC, arguing that Trump's campaign broke federal law by sending fundraising emails to foreign elected officials. Trump isn't just spamming Scottish parliamentarians for cash; he's also been asking for money from elected officials in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, England and Finland. I hope Hillary's campaign files an official complaint... or does she do the same kind of crooked campaign funding?

3 grifters: Eric, The Donald, Donald, Jr.

Why Does Obama Always Endorse The Worst Candidates In Democratic Primaries?

When notorious drama queen #DebtTrapDebbie Wasserman Schultz set her hair on fire and went screeching to the White House that Bernie's political revolution was coming for her, Obama shut her up with a cynical endorsement of her reelection. It's no secret he wishes she would just disappear off the face of the earth already. In fact, I was on a top secret call recently (ssshhhhh...), discussing a major Beltway group's congressional endorsements, when I decided to throw the Wasserman Schultz/Canova race into the discussion. Everyone on the call-- no one more than myself-- was shocked when the White House representative backed my proposal for a Canova endorsement. They hate her; but Obama endorsed her anyway. She is, after all, his DNC chair. She's become the symbol of Democratic Party disunity but she's his symbol of Democratic Party disunity. Besides, party hacks stick together. And, no matter if you think Obama is the greatest president since FDR or the worst president since Ronald Reagan, no one can accuse him of not being a party loyalist (whether you want to think of that as a "hack" or not).

So, yes, Obama endorsed one of the most reviled and detested Democrats in the country, one even he reviles and detests. And he's been on a roll of truly terrible primary endorsements. He allowed Schumer and Reid to dictate endorsements for the weak Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania and the incredibly corrupt and incredibly Republican Florida candidate, Patrick Murphy, presumably to help him with funding for his overly costly presidential library. I mean, Murphy, who not only voted for the Keystone XL Pipeline every time it came up but who was one of the only "Democrats"-- and I use the term lightly-- to back a Republican scheme to remove Obama from the Keystone XL decision-making process!?!?! Murphy, the so-called Democrat to back the Republican witch-hunt against Hillary Clinton by voting for the Benghazi Committee? That Murphy?!?!? Oh, yes-- the Murphy who has been gung-ho on rolling back the Wall Street regulations Obama beats the GOP up over and the Murphy who came into Congress braying like an idiot that cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits had to be on the table. That Murphy.

And the latest inferior candidate to go running to Obama for a rescue endorsement is the little brother of South Jersey machine boss, George Norcross-- dirty li'l Donald, a Democrat literally financed by the Trump family!! Alex Law and candidates like him are the future of a vibrant, progressive Democratic Party. But Obama went for the gutter garbage. Thanks, Barack. In fact, his endorsement statement was a laughably ironic lie. "Donald has been there with me on critical issues before Congress in the last two years-- and has always stood up for what's right." Donald's very first vote in Congress was for the Keystone XL Pipeline-- and that was just the beginning. Norcross opposed Obama on 39 key votes in the short time he's been in Congress. He has the most Republican voting record of any New Jersey Democrat. He also opposed-- and voted against-- Obama's nuclear treaty with Iran, which Obama said at the time was a big deal. And when Obama opposed the GOP's SAFE Act to reject Obama's plans to take in a small number of Syrian refugees, Norcross voted with the Republicans and against Obama. I wonder how much brother George is getting Obama for his library fund.

I know Patrick Murphy's biggest and sleaziest fundraiser, Saudi billionaire Ibrahim Al-Rashid, has a pappy back in Riyadh, ole Nasser Al-Rashid, who gave between one and five million dollars to the Clinton presidential library. That was nice of one of the top 3 advisors to the Saudi royal family, a family that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure dumbbell Patrick Murphy was on the House Intelligence Committee. Now why would they want their guy on the House Intelligence Committee? (And today Obama will be helping Privileged Patrick raise money in Miami and then golfing up in Murphy's congressional district tomorrow.) If you don't have $5 million to help Obama with his library, contribute what you can to help him accomplish his new goal of expanding Social Security by electing Alex Law, Alan Grayson and Tim Canova (at the thermometer):

Patrick Murphy's Out Of Control Corruption-- A Perfect Symbol For Reid's Clouded Departure And Schumer's Ominous Arrival

I only ever had one argument with Keith Ellison. He wanted the Congressional Progressive Caucus to endorse Patrick Murphy when Murphy first ran for Congress against war criminal Allen West in 2012. I pointed out that Murphy was a rich, spoiled, drunken Republican without a single Democratic value-- let alone progressive value-- in his simple, fogged little mind. Ellison didn't dispute the obvious but claimed that Murphy would take direction from him. Fortunately, not enough CPC members agreed and they didn't endorse Murphy. Many Democrats did however. The DCCC loved everything bad about Murphy and spent $548,517 on the election, coordinated with a $2,375,691 expenditure from Nancy Pelosi's House Majority PAC, some of that money coming from the powerful Al-Rashid family from Saudi Arabia, which has taken a gigantic role in financing Murphy's political career. (Murphy managed to get himself assigned to the House Intelligence Committee, which is exactly what the Saudis wanted of him.)

Murphy went on to beat a stunned West, who remarked during the campaign that Murphy "doesn’t want to be in front of the public, he has no ideas, he does not address any of the issues, he is the emptiest of an empty suit-- I think he’s just a name on the ballot." That was a perfectly accurate description. And as soon as Murphy took his seat, he joined the New Dems and started amassing an incredibly reactionary voting record-- the 4th worst of any Democrat in the House, featuring votes to remove President Obama from the Keystone XL Pipeline decision-- he wasn't following Ellison on that one-- and joining the Republicans to establish an anti-Clinton witch-hunt called the Benghazi Committee-- again, not following Ellison.

In 2013, the Shark Tank reported that Murphy "Boehner granted Patrick Murphy’s request to a private meeting to discuss Murphy’s possible defecting to the Republican Party" and then turned down his conditions and told him to stay with the Democratic Party. Friday I confirmed this story with a former Boehner staffer who told me he had first had knowledge of the meeting.

Now Murphy is being heavily pushed by Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, the Wall Street banksters and, of course, the Al-Rashids for the open Florida Senate seat Marco Rubio is giving up. His Democratic primary opponent is independent-minded progressive champion Alan Grayson, who is loathed by corruptionists on Wall Street and their Beltway puppets-- namely Schumer and Reid. When Reid publicly announced he wanted Grayson to lose, Mitch McConnell chimed in that he agrees and that he also wants Grayson to lose. Steven Law, the CEO of McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund said. Grayson's "Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders agenda of more government may appeal to uncompromising liberals, but it's the wrong direction for our country." Last week, Josh Holmes, McConnell's former chief of staff talked about the Florida Senate race with the media and said he "can envision a scenario where the balance of the Senate tips to the Democrats with the election of Alan Grayson. And I'm not the least bit kidding about that...Grayson could beat that entire field of Republicans."

Friday, the Courage Campaign noted that Wasserman Schultz, like Murphy a corrupt New Dem, was getting too much of the blame for the pay day lender scandal. Sure, she took massive amounts of money from the finance sector and she "is pushing to gut a rule by Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to crack down on predatory payday lenders" BUT "it turns out she's far from the only corporate Democrat attacking the CFPB while cashing in on Wall Street. Representative Patrick Murphy, the lead Democrat sponsoring the bill, received $1.4 million from the financial sector this year alone, the fifth-most of anyone in the entire House of Representatives... Wall Street is stuffing millions into the pockets of corporate Democrats who are attacking Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."

Writing for the Washington Post last week, Jennifer Rubin, gave more "credit" for the disaster that Murphy has turned into to Reid than to the real culprit, Chuck Schumer, who has vowed to the Wall Street banksters that he can "deliver" Murphy as a way of "balancing" Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley and other progressives. Rubin, writing that the Dems will find it nearly impossible to take back the Senate without winning Florida, asserted that Reid "set out to crush" Grayson on behalf of Patrick Murphy.

Reid’s handpicked candidate turned out to be a nightmare. One GOP operative gleefully said, “Murphy has had the worst month of any Senate candidate.” That could well be true, considering the stream of revelations and stumbles that suggest Reid and the Democratic establishment did not vet Murphy very well.

Murphy was caught embellishing his academic record. In and of itself, that might not raise concerns, but it comes amid a slew of other issues.

Local media have seized on a swirl of controversies about his wealthy father’s campaign support:

The Democrat has seen an avalanche of news headlines and political attacks in the last week surrounding: money his family-owned company and father gave to a super PAC that supports him; donations he received from an admitted felon; and a House bill he co-sponsored that would have benefitted political donors and his family business.

Most of these facts aren’t new, but Republican groups and primary opponent U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson have latched onto them.

Two Federal Election Commission complaints have already been filed concerning allegations about illegal coordination between his campaign and his super PAC. One of his donors was Ibrahim al-Rashid, who is the son of a shady adviser to the Saudi royal family and who pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex-wife. (Murphy was compelled to return the donation from Rashid, whose father has given huge amounts to the Clinton Foundation.)

That’s not the only fishy donor, according to local press accounts:

Murphy also played down questions about his support for the EB-5 visa program. His campaigns have received contributions from Florida developers who tap into the funding source. Foreigners who invest at least $500,000 are given green cards; many participants are from China. The program has enjoyed broad support but also come under scrutiny for fraud and a perception it sends the wrong message about the country’s immigration system.

Nicholas A. Mastroianni II, a major EB-5 player based in Florida, has along with family members given Murphy about $25,000 and he has used companies to give at least $50,000 to the pro-Murphy super PAC. Another EB-5 developer and Murphy donor is Jeffrey Berkowitz, who is developing SkyRise Miami, a $430 million entertainment and observation tower... Murphy said Mastroianni and Berkowitz are friends and he gives them regular updates on the campaign. But he said he did not recall specific conversations with them about legislation he sponsored in 2014 to make the EB-5 program permanent. He also did not recall meeting with Liu Yu, a New York based lawyer who specializes in the field. The two appeared in a 2014 article on a Chinese-language website.

As if that were not enough, yesterday the Tampa Bay Times reported:

“Immediately following the BP oil spill, Congressman Murphy spent six months in the Gulf of Mexico leading cleanup efforts with his small business, Coastal Environmental Services,” reads his official House website.

But a review raises questions of whether Murphy exaggerated his role in the catastrophe... His campaign refuses to make public contracts he says he secured to clean up oil, or to characterize how much oil the company’s skimmers cleaned up and how much the firm earned.

Meanwhile, a source familiar with the records from Murphy’s first congressional race is pouring through the money trail of maxed-out donors to determine whether there are irregularities. (Patterns of low-income voters related to or employed by the candidate or candidate’s close associates and family can raise the issue of so-called “straw” donors.)

One wonders whether Reid could have benefited from a cursory Google search about Murphy before going out on a limb and going to war with Grayson. The primary is now turning into a lose-lose for the Democrats. If Grayson wins, Reid is humiliated and is stuck with a gadfly candidate. If Murphy wins, he’s a sitting duck for Republicans in the general election. Maybe Reid needs a new handpicked candidate to take out his first handpicked candidate.

Better idea: maybe Reid-- and, more important, Schumer-- should stop interfering with Democratic primaries outside of their own states. Contributors to the DSCC have been furious that Schumer and Reid have directed Jon Tester to spend immense sums against progressive Democrats and in favor of the kinds of corrupt conservatives Schumer and Reid prefer. Please consider contributing to Grayson's Senate campaign here: